Chi­nese PLA Del­e­ga­tion Vis­its India

NEW DELHI. A 15-mem­ber de legat ion from Western Theatre Com­mand of Peo­ple’s Lib­er­a­tion Army, China was on a five-day visit to India from Fe­bru­ary 21 to 26.

The del­e­ga­tion was led by Major Gen­eral Zhao Jin Song, Vice Chief of Staff of Head­quar­ter Western Theatre Com­mand, Chengdu, China. The Chi­nese del­e­ga­tion called on se­nior In­dian Army of­fi­cers deal­ing with bor­der is­sues at Army Head­quar­ters on Fe­bru­ary 21.

The two sides ex­changed views on wide rang­ing is­sues and agreed that peace and tran­quil­lity on the bor­der is an im­por­tant guar­an­tor for de­vel­op­ment and con­tin­ued growth of bi­lat­eral re­la­tions. The lead­ers of two del­e­ga­tions dis­cussed the im­por­tance of hav­ing reg­u­lar bi­lat­eral ex­changes and ad­di­tional Bor­der Per­son­nel Meet­ing ( BPM) points.

This visit is con­tin­u­a­tion of the en­hanced en­gage­ments be­tween the two Armies, which also saw Western Theatre Com­man­der Gen­eral Zhao Zongqi vis­it­ing India in De­cem­ber, 2016.

India on March 6 un­furled the big­gest and tallest tri­colour in the coun­try at the At­tari bor­der. The flag, which can be spot­ted from La­hore in Pak­istan, is 120 X 80 feet and stands at the tallest po­si­tion at 360 feet. Also, the flag pole weighs a mas­sive 55 tonnes and costs 1.75 crore alone out of the to­tal es­ti­mated at 3.5 crore. No­tably, each flag costs 1,25,000. Ac­cord­ing to re­ports, the Amritsar Im­prove­ment Trust has over six flags on standby in case of any dam­age to the cur­rently hoisted tri­colour.